1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011-centennial
|
|
2002
"[S]pace occupies the single most consistent conceptual category in the work of Marshall McLuhan. Put another way, space is the notion that connects a multiplicity of elements in McLuhan's large and diverse oeuvre . McLuhan made constant reference to space throughout his career, and the various dimensions of his thought are articulated through notions of spatial biases, sensations, and modes of production. It was space, furthermore, which anchored the system of ideas that connected McLuhan to artists and theorists with whose work his own is most productively situated." (xiii)
"Levinson's determination to find prophecy in all of McLuhan's ideas seems to push theory farther toward theology (Is there a common root in the two words?). To the extent that theory becomes theology it can no longer be disproved, and we are asked to return to a time when theories proved themselves by being merely interesting or provocative." (224)
"The media had their fun with McLuhan, treating him as a perplexing novelty act. But by his death in 1980, he had been discredited in the academic world, which looked askance at his vulgar celebrity. By the '90s, most of his books were out of print. And now there are university graduates who draw a blank when you mention McLuhan's name. Others may recall only a couple of catchphrases -- 'the global village' or 'the medium is the message.' McLuhan laid the bedrock of what's now called media studies, and envisaged the Internet decades before it existed. But his ideas have been so well subsumed by pop culture that we tend to forget where they came from. There's no mention of McLuhan in Naomi Klein's No Logo, the best-selling bible of the anti-globalization movement. Yet her notion of the 'brandscape' seems inconceivable without his vision of the media as a supersaturated environment." (66)
"If Baudrillard is indebted, in part, to Boorstin for his critique of McLuhan, how then does this influence and critique develop in his later work? In a 1984 interview Baudrillard says that McLuhan's is 'still the best analysis' of the media (1993a: 87), but this claim is made on the basis of his own 'more interesting' reading in which, from an initial defense of McLuhan, 'one inverts the hypothesis'(1993a: 88), to reverse the effects he describes (1993a: 90). Although there are fewer references to McLuhan in Baudrillard's later work, he remains acentral influence, especially as Baudrillard comes to foreground the electronic media and technology, but, as always, his critical conclusions are reversed by Baudrillard." (383)
"Indeed, the ideological harmony between technological utopias and housing utopias created an ideal nesting ground for television's introduction to the public in the postwar years. Women's home magazines often displayed television sets in decorative settings which created the illusion of spatial conquests. The set was typically placed in rooms with panoramic window views, or else installed next to globes and colorful maps. The image of television as a 'global village,' which media critic Marshall McLuhan spoke of in the 1960s, was already suggested in the popular discourses of the postwar period." (328)
|